GO. FIELD TRIP.

Some places to remember for Memorial Day weekend

May 28, 2004|By Nancy Maes, Special to the Tribune.

Memorial Day weekend usually means parades, picnics and the start of summer, but originally it was a remembrance of wartime sacrifices. Apart from the Chicago parade (see box), there are several ways to honor the holiday.

Illinois native John A. Logan, a Civil War corps commander in the Union Army and later a U.S. senator, was a founding member in 1866 of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans organization. As commander-in-chief of the G.A.R. in 1868, he issued an order declaring May 30--the date on which Memorial Day was observed until changed in 1971 to the last Monday in May--as a day to place flowers on the graves of Civil War soldiers.

In time Memorial Day became a day to remember all those who gave their lives in the service of their country.

G.A.R. Reunion

Kline Creek Farm and the Wheaton History Center have organized a re-creation of a Grand Army of the Republic Reunion, the post-war gatherings of Union army veterans, and expand on it to share historical lessons.

A war encampment will include a tent barely big enough to keep the elements at bay, a navy blue wool blanket that played the role of "sleeping bag" and very little food.

"The men lived on coffee and hardtack," explains Wendy Miller, collections and education director of the Wheaton History Center. "The hardtack was not like a saltine. It was very dense. The soldiers called it `teeth duller' because it was so dense and `worm castle' because it was often infested."

Roger Kotecki will play the guitar and sing songs from the era that include the stirring "Rally Round the Flag" that Union soldiers sang on the battlefield, "Just Before the Battle, Mother," about a soldier heading for battle who bids farewell to his mother and "Vacant Chair" about a place left empty at a family gathering when a solider dies in the war.

"It was a very tough war," says Kotecki, "but it's important to remember that the Civil War preserved the Union and ended slavery."

It's also important to remember the very significant role women played in the war.

"Women helped on the home front by learning how to take care of the crops and animals and they helped on the front by taking care of the wounded," says Alberta Adamson, president of the Wheaton History Center, who will wear a dress with a hoop skirt to the reunion.

In addition, women held fairs to raise money for the war effort and its aftermath. The events often included games like the ones at the reunion this weekend such as tossing a ring onto the tail of a small-scale donkey to make his head turn or climbing to the top of a rope ladder on a swivel to ring a bell.

"People will learn the facts," says Adamson, "but we will also tell about the war from the human side so they can experience how it would have felt to live at that time period."

Grand Army of the Republic Reunion, 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. Monday, Kline Creek Farm, County Farm Road, 1/2-mile south of North Avenue, Winfield, free, 630-876-5900.

Vietnam veterans art

During the Civil War, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was called "soldiers heart." In World War I it became known as "shell shock" and World War II and Korean War veterans labeled it "combat fatigue."

The name may change but the results are the same. They can be seen in the art works in "Trauma and Metamorphosis."

Artist Jerry Kykisz, who curated the show, says that the black and white paintings by Ronald Mann were inspired by inkblots he was asked to interpret when he was in a VA Hospital.

"He told me he couldn't tell them what he saw because they would think he was crazy," says Kykisz. "Crazy as a fox, because he put down [in his paintings] how the trauma of war affects a lot of people and some of it is so strikingly familiar to what's going on now."

In 1982 Justine Merritt called on people to create banners depicting what they could not "bear to think of as lost forever in a nuclear war." The response was overwhelming. In 1985, 10 miles of ribbons sent from around the world were lined up to encircle the Pentagon and other buildings in Washington, D.C. Some of the hundreds of banners that were donated to The Peace Museum are on display in "The Ribbon--A Celebration of Life." The title reflects the subject of Merritt's needlework banner in the exhibit that lists the names of members of her family and her friends.